planetdamage: this was 2017

2017? Too much noise.

Hello. It's been some time. I basically limited my FB activity to a Dunham-number limited (sort of) private group of friends, acquaintances and stalkers called Externalia, based on a newsletter I ran for a time. (Images go to Instagram, my Last.FM scrobbler went to hell and I hate how Spotify lags my box or lacks a lot of stuff I listen to, the Chrome web scrobbler extensions don't work well either and music listening aggregation is something I would love to see in 2018. Just saying.) Released an EP in January, worked on a new one this whole year. Bought a lot of music gear, developed Gear Acquisition Syndrome, then killed it. Sold a lot of board games, bought a few new ones (Pandemic: Legacy S1 is amazing, Eldritch Horror and Zombicide: Black Plague are close to our hearts, This War of Mine is something of a gorgeous ambivalent trainwreck - brilliant but too depressing). Teaching still goes on about digital marketing and upcoming technology trends. Also, a remix of one of my tracks was featured in a dance performance at the Budapest Kunsthalle. Lot of things.  Many of them I might have forgotten about. Lots of bad things. I won't even write about those.

So I bring you photos from this year. There were more, two pre-selections happened, then these ones remained, very focused, in more ways than one.

01


Fuel duo of 2k17: coffee and music. To the right: the essential quality of coffee, according to Warren Ellis, it is something close to Hiroshima strength, same approximation by one of my favourite Italian cafés near Shoreditch is aaaah triple ristretto. This package comes from Bite, I think, but the strongest coffee in the Hungarian capital is in Barako Coffee House, no doubts about that. To the left: that's my new DAW! I switched from Renoise to Bitwig early this year, because it was a nightmare working with vocal tracks in a pattern-based environment, Ableton was too expensive and Bitwig was a new idea, also the UI looked really decent. Looking back a year's worth of music writing and jamming, this DAW is a monster. My new EP Stray Signal (out in February-ish, 2018) was done with Bitwig and I think you can pretty much hear that - if you'll buy the EP off the Two Gods label Bandcamp, you'll also get the audio production diaries as a hidden file.

02

Two months before my first gig, shot by my good friend tlvlp, showing off my gear, live and in-house thrown together. Most of this did not end up on stage, though - I wanted to trigger backing tracks from the SPD-SX in the foreground (because everything looks better if you hit it with fluorescent drumsticks, thanks Ancsur!), then I ended up with using my Android phone, because 1) it's easy, light and works fine and 2) around 11pm with the level of drunkenness I'm expecting on the floor, you won't be able to hear the difference between the DA of a smartphone and an SPD-SX, anyway. For pads and leads I used the Novation Ultranova, for vocals a Roland VT-3 voice transformer box (easily my best music gear buy this year at FriendlyHouse) fed through a Kaoss Pad 3. You will notice I do not have the laptop switched on and for good reason - ELECTRICITY COSTS A LOT IN EASTERN EUROPE trying to do everything without a laptop. That's one of the reasons why I have the iPad there (a surprisingly trustworthy piece) and the Arturia BSP, triggering all things MIDIable. If I can tap the exact sequence, even my coffee machine in the next room can trigger a fucking coffee bukkake fountain, because, you know, CC messages. (Several Easter eggs hidden here.)

 

03


Pre-gig soundcheck, photo by BL Photo & Graphics. Funny thing, my BFF Bess told me not just to practice playing my tracks but also to practice setting up my gear and pulling it down as fast as possible. I think I'm around 12 minutes with this gear and I thought I was super efficient with color-coded cables, marked power adapters and all that and now I know that the next time I play, that marking system's gotta be fluorescent, because I couldn't see shit in a low-light environment such as this one. And, oh yeah, mega thanks to Black Nail Cabaret for letting me to use their in-ear.

 

04


At this point you might think that my debut gig was probably a key point of 2017 and it sort of was - a lot of work, anxiety and research went into it and I'm damn glad and honoured I could share a stage with Black Nail Cabaret and Attrition (and given that Emke's new solo EP was also released through Two Gods Records, that sort of turns the whole event into a Two Gods label romp!) Thanks to each and every one of you who came out to see us - you ladies and gents were awesome!
Top photo by BL Photo & Graphics, bottom photo by Theo.

 

05


Post-gig merch sorting. There's a shitload of merch you can buy from me, because capitalism. A digipak comprising my two previous EPs (that my label started calling an album, because capitalism, I guess? also, 12 tracks), two tees and I also have copious amounts of custom pins from the LD50 days, plus copious amounts of Damage Report books I can sign for you (in Hungarian, though, because laziness) and stickers. But I could just sign you any day of the week without you actually needing to buy anything from me, because creative freedom. Drop me a message if you want some of the merch, though, because I still haven't set up my webstore. Gotta compliment Peter Santha for his awesome artwork/design he put into the P://D merchandise and image and Empire Merch for making all that happen!

06


Post-gig get-together at Krak'n Town (easily the best steampunk pub in Budapest) with Clayfeet Bálint, Black Nail Cabaret Emke, Attrition Kerry and Martin, Jonathan (who's not in a band and why that is still remains a mystery to everyone at this table) and me. Good times! This is also the place where I repeatedly have to say a heartfelt thank you to Bálint for his MASSIVE AMAZING HELP at the Attrition gig and also introducing me to Wolfgang Riechmann's 1978 album Wunderbar.

07


Quite a few great gigs this year, the four best ones to win my heart were Drab Majesty, Skinny Puppy, The Birthday Massacre and Kaelan Mikla. This was also the year when I started buying vinyls at gigs to really support the bands - that merch stall loot grind led me to an amazing find at the KM gig - namely an underground fanzine from Iceland named Myrkfaelni, go check it out!

 

So, 2017. I hope you bleed into hell, because however much awesomeness the crew had, shitstorm's been ballistic.
It's high time for a change.


planetdamage: this was 2016

It's time to wrap up 2016 and launch it as the renegade torpedo it was. Most of the yearly summaries I came across called 2k16 a horrible, woe-ridden suckery and most of it actually was - even when I wasn't really touched by those dozens of celebrities passing away. Still, most of this year was what Roman Catholics and muchly debateable esoteric and proto-occult writers call the dark night of the soul which is a very subtle way of calling something fucking miserable - thankfully, music (and almost as often, music making) was there to keep me sane, so, thank you, amazing music making software that looks like Excel on mescaline. Now, scroll on to the loud, musicky bits.

THE LOUD MUSIC BITS

You know that curse when you can't finish the projects you started? Managed to middle-finger that curse into the ground a few times last year. Released my first EP Snapshots of a Surveillance Manifesto a few days before my birthday - and I'm not just happy because I managed to launch it after months of working on it but also because I had the luck the work with the best people on it.

And what's even better, I got an official fan video from Soundmirror66 for the track that seems to be everyone's favourite off this release.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B5ozdEcpGI

Jump forward in time - Martin Bowes signed me to his label Two Gods Records. My second EP ANGST hit the internets during the end-of-the-year holiday season - and I'm super glad I could work with Emke of Black Nail Cabaret on that one.

I also lost my music video virginity - here's the proof.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTgcB92FD-w

And some photos that I've saved for this post. Look grateful. (Emke needs no introduction, I believe - as for the fourth picture, from left to right: meet Zoltan Kovary, director of our Angst music video, Ninth, currently promoter at the Budapest venues Blue Hell and KVLT where we shot the whole thing and a mildly uncaffeinated me.)

emke_planetdamage_mirror

emke_kz

planetdamage

kz_ninth_planetdamage

And although this is not a studio, welcome to the section of my freemasonic lodge where I make music. So people would actually call it a studio. I wouldn't. I call it where my coffeemug family lives.

planetdamage_2016_gear

And you can't have a year passing by without a remix made for Clayfeet! Well, it's actually the second remix this year, but hey! this is already a pretty tightly established pattern!

THE OTHER  PROFESSIONAL BITS

I really don't remember much apart from making music and hearing everyone ask me why I make music in Excel (which is a pretty standard way of Ableton or Logic users reacting to Renoise after seeing it for the first time and then, whenever). I know, though, that I wrote a lot of futuristic weirdness and I ended up a speaker at events like Brain Bar Budapest, called one of 2016's biggest futuretech shindigs @ this side of Europe.

planetdamage_bbb

VR was pretty much on top of my list in both trying out different gears and writing about them - mostly in Hungarian, though. I pretty much went the devil's advocate way about it, focused on the health issues and the interface and UX problems and I also managed not to puke under any of the HMDs which I consider quite a fucking big feat.(Although VR pukes now have their own niche sub-subgenre on Pornhub, which is apparently a thing right after clown molestation fantasies and quick-cut rush hypnosis videos. When all the news outlets started posting about Santa's naughty little helpers as one of the more oft-used search term for the Xmas holidays, that was a hard-shelled bitchplease right there.) I also wrote a book (remember me promising you a new book for 2016?) which didn't get published, because I was still trying to get a coffeetable hardcover edition out, which is not an easy or necessarily smart thing in the Budapest of 2016. Also, there was a Hungarian podcast named 20 perccel a jövőbe (Twenty minutes into the future) I was involved with for a few long months, mixing futuretech and bad, like, really really bad puns.

planetdamage_suzy

And there was an LD50 revival party last year, quite the weirdest class reunion ever. Lots of stories to tell.

THE LAST.FM BITS

Posting summaries of social media platforms is still something I am looking forward to when writing these end-of-year things. Still, Facebook doesn't give you proper summaries and I don't mess around with its APIs, I am practically off Foursquare and Twitter, Instagram still requires third-party sites for things like #bestnine2016, so I'm sticking with Last.fm as I do when I have to cling on to one solid site. (Well, here's my #bestnine2016, just in case.)

bestnine2016

I used Scroblr for gathering all listening data from my AIMP3 (that I use instead of Winamp), Bandcamp, Google Music and YouTube but as it turns out, during the past few months Scroblr started ditching my inputs. Also, I ruined a lot of my stats by listening to my music drafts in MP3s, because my most listened-to artist is me, my most liked is the Snapshots EP.... yeah, will listen to all my stuff from my DAW from now on. That's also the reason why you can't see the first places in the ranking screenshots below.

lastfm_01

Artists scrobbled:

lastfm_02

Albums scrobbled:

lastfm_03

And this is my most scrobbled song in 2016:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZK5296JOMo

And here's my favourite mix from 2016 that I played a lot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WPStS-oUCE

THE ENTERTAINMENT BITS

As expected, the whole boardgaming thing fell into a torpor, I didn't have enough time and most of the game mechanisms our crew came across, well, we really didn't hit it off with those. After Eldritch Horror became our household go-to thing, nothing's good enough anymore. (BTW I'm still selling a lot of my stuff, so if you live in Budapest and want to buy something from my Boardgamegeek list, just send me an email or contact me on Facebook and let me know. Might be willing to sell a few things from the items not marked "For trade", too.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE6Of8x8BCk

As for PC gaming, apart from the fact that I really ended up in the pit of loot-gathering hack'n'slashes (and Borderlands 2 is the king, no fucking doubt about that), there's been quite a load of cyberpunk games! The new Deus Ex was a total letdown for me (although the 12-min video that served as an introduction, posted above, presenting both the story of DE:HR and the gap between that and the new game was one of the most exhilarating experiences and I really felt at times that this is the Western hemisphere's Ghost in the Shell), but games like Orwell, Superhot, System Crash, the Mr. Robot app and Distance finally showed that there still is hope. God bless indie developers.

And don't even start me on the series.. was a strong year with the Person of Interest series finale and the ongoing episodes of Mr. Robot, Westworld, Dream Corp LLC, Berlin Station, Designated Survivor, The Man in the High Castle, Incorporated, 3 Percent, Humans, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency... way, way too much stuff. Go collect'em all.

KTHXBAI

So that's all you get about 2k16 if you haven't been keeping an extra eye, drone or tentacle out. No forecasts either - I'd rather deliver now instead of talking about it. Keep an alert on all the regular channels - there will be huge sine waves of silence drops, then peaks of loud, glorious motion. I suggest you do the same this year. Stay safe and vigilant and if you can rock it, GO FUCKING ROCK IT.

Always,

damage_a


planetdamage.LIFESIGN (September 2016)

Newsflash for everyone who's not on social media! If you thought I was gone, yes I was. Coffee excess, coffee deprivation and all that jazz does that to you. Also, coping with ten things at a time.Read more


planetdamage.LIFESIGN (July 2016)

Hello from The Lodge.

This is goths-under-the-stones season here, AC's raging and I dip my cornea in coffee on an hourly basis to stay awake in a torrent of bad stuff happening with the worst timing. If you're not new here, you've already realized nothing's really changed here. Woes aside, join me for another round of WTF!

THE HEARY THINGS

planetdamage lodge studio
This is how the more musically-inclined corner of The Lodge looks like at the moment. Even at night (so either my eyes have gone totally light-sensitive or there's an industrial lightbolt thrower installed outside my windows). The most important piece of gear right there is the coffeemug, everything else is of secondary importance. There's a new release already in the making (I haven't even started properly promoing Snapshots of a Surveillance Manifesto, but still) and two new tracks are in pretty good shape already. Been thinking a lot about taking the whole thing live, I guess the new gear really reflects that - it's a Roland SPD-SX perc/sample pad (back on Gearslutz everyone was raving about how good its predecessor was) and a Novation Ultranova with a titload of arps and live filters.

Reviews for Snapshots.. are scarce but good - surprisingly enough there was even a review featured in Hungary's biggest science-fiction mag Galaktika.

I've also uploaded the audio commentary for Snapshots to Mixcloud, so you can now listen to my very first podcasty -listeny thing about how I conjured up the EP. Might be fun for, so give it a go below!

THE LOOKY-TALKY THINGS

The summer heatwave (fuck you, summer heatwave) drove a wedge into a string of presentations and talks and stuff that I did when I was not struggling with self-imposed caffeine deficiency - and it was all watermarked with Major Kusanagi. There was a longer roundtable (or more like bar stool) discussion at an ELTE movie club for psychology majors...

Photo creds: Cortex Film Klub
Photo creds: Cortex Film Klub

..and a shorter presentation took place at Brain Bar Budapest 2016, an event that was heralded as this year's biggest European event about future tech (all intelligence officers and freemasons chuckle here, hopefully), watermarked by both Google and Wired.

Photo creds: Brain Bar Budapest
Photo creds: Brain Bar Budapest
Photo creds: Brain Bar Budapest
Photo creds: Brain Bar Budapest

There's an official YouTube cast about that, I'll post it below with a heavy heart - I never watched it and I never will. Reason: I'm wired to do quality checks after releases and always from the wrong perspective and that's never helpful, especially that I remember waking up that day and I had the worst sickness in a thousand years raging around in my body and self-control and tai chi aside, I think it shows. My buddies think it doesn't, but maybe they are just super kind. So there. Me talking for 18 minutes, being not in black.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVYZxyBKPX4

Putting that aside, expect news not too soon - the new release is taking up a lot of time with experimenting with sounds and patching everything together here is madness (bad and mad technical reasons) and I plan to have a lot of collaborations on that, which will take a lot of time. Also, there's two new book ideas, one is actually finished, the other could be finished in two months to my estimates, but financing it is quite problematic. And also, life (goddamnit). If you want quick updates about stuff, follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (I go there once every month, sorry guys, so maybe don't follow me there) or just drop me an email and send me something super inspiring, motivational or.. you know. Anything good that lights my sensors up. (Also: cover image is by Balázs Kassai on top of the page, can't pimp his work enough!)

Always,
damage_a


Planetdamage featured on The Cage 23!

Just one week after releasing "Snapshots of a Surveillance Manifesto", FIREWALLS (my most synthwaveish track ever written) was featured on Martin Bowes' compilation Cage 23. If you're not really aware of Martin's endeavours (apart from him being the driving force behind Attrition and Engram), he's running the label TWO GODS and he has a studio aptly named The Cage where he produces, mixes, masters, engineers or devilishly concocts bands (check out his client list, it is INSANE).

Every year he releases a track selection from all the music he produced, remixed or mastered at The Cage Studios: and the 2015-2016 selection entails (brace yourselves!) Amys Arms, Attrition, Colossloth, Eric Random, Factice Factory, Honeymoon Cowboys, Jet Noir, Khost, Mad Masks, Michael X Christian with Gitane Demone, Nanochrist, Poetry of Thorns, Prole Position, Rachel Haywire, Red Fetish, Spatial Relation, This Cold Night, Ultra Arcanum, Vagonovozgatye, Venus Fly Trap, Warriors Of The Dystotheque, ZE:RO and myself.


Snapshots of a Surveillance Manifesto

You might have stumbled into it in the header area, but if you haven't: my first EP is out. "Snapshots of a Surveillance Manifesto" has been in the making for something like one and a half years - definitely wasn't one of my fast-moving projects but hey, it is now officially out, freely streamable and/or downloadable, packed with lots of goodies.. and I might have some additional points of interest to share (to further hammer my SEO flags into uncharted territories in the net, vast and infinite). Enjoy!

BEHIND-THE-SCENES: You might read a few things here about the EP you didn't know but there's a whole damn repository of BTS intel packed with the EP. As I've always loved wading knee-deep in Angelspit's blipverts or the audio commentaries Blue Stahli packed with his releases and as I've had LOADS of different MP3 drafts from different stages of writing a song, I thought it would be a great thing to actually make a production diary for each and every song. This way you can hear how the first core loops sounded like, what the idea is behind each title or how Lensjammer, for example, was originally a jingle for a European Space Agency music competition. If you haven't grabbed the prod diary yet, now is the time - enter your email address here and grab a hefty download!

COLLABORATION: I am really humbled to say this but it was one of my favourite musicians, Martin Bowes of Attrition (and Engram) who worked on the EP in terms of mixing and mastering (and additional production). He's a great guy, definitely knows his trade and I've surely learned a lot during our time working on the EP tracks - we actually agreed at some point that the premix tracks could have easily been called industrial dub as I've suffocated them with a more than fair amount of reverb and decay. And it wasn't just him to remix these tracks - I could also feature long-time industrial favourite The Mercy Cage on the EP with a buddy of mine from the London days, Lhasa Mencur (whose sound pack I also reviewed here earlier), Hungarian industrial veteran First Aid 4 Souls and the solidly-rocking Black Nail Cabaret. And the artist photos were shot by Balázs Kassai, as always - he's not just a good friend (since high school, actually) but he's also the guy who makes the best photos of my weirdly changing, coffee-deprived face. Period.

Damage. Photo: Balázs Kassai
Damage. Photo: Balázs Kassai

COVER: The front/back cover, the inlay and the logo (with additional pieces of artwork) was created by a long-time buddy of mine, Péter Sántha - the Hungarian readers might know him from LD50 and our collaboration on Carbonbonbons, a goth T-shirt brand. Peter had a great idea for creating an EP moodboard: he told me to pick a huge handful (25-50, maybe?) of industrial album covers that I like and find patterns in them when I feel I've selected enough. Weirdly enough, all of them feature screaming faces with protective eyegear. It turned out that his buddy Jeremy Falconer has a statue that would be just the thing for the album cover - and from that moment on we were pretty much set!

CRYPTO: As you might have guessed from the title, there's an overarcing idea about today's surveillance society in the EP. There was even a long phase of production during which I thought adding a crypto game to the EP would really boost everything, from downloads through SEO and exposure to national security flags. I really wanted to encode a long list of references and messages into the artwork, the music, the lyrics, basically everything - but as I don't have the proper brain for crypto and I had noone to help me out, I just left the idea sunbathing somewhere far away. Still, the first idea that I came up with is still embedded, quite audibly, in Lensjammer and I've already gotten the first proper solution from it from an eager listener who'd like to remain nameless. Congratz!

DAW: I'm actually proud to say that the original tracks were done with Renoise. When I was making music in the mid-nineties (I've compiled the best tracks of that period under the title Track Record), I was working with FastTracker, a music-making software with a vertical workflow, looking much like Excel. Apparently that's the workflow I can work with, as I do have trouble finding an easy way into horizontal. (And Ableton is a no-go, I was flirting out with BitWig Studio for a time, but Renoise is simply, simply the best.) And the lovely Renoise team even pimped the EP through their social channels, which is a nice touch, thanks guys!

And yeah, there's more in the pipeline where this came from. Until the new release, stream the older ones from Soundcloud or Bandcamp or just download the full pack (there's some nice endorsements there from Leaether Strip and Angelspit!) and spread the virus to your friends and neigbours! ROCK!


planetdamage.LIFESIGN (April 2016)

It's time to remove the stealth implant, otherwise I'll forget I can switch it off and I'll drown in the realm of Lost in Time and Space. (That's a Lovecraftian board gaming reference right there.) It's been four months(ish) that I last cared about having a blog and the reasons for the radio silence are endless - so, without excusing myself further (that never seems to work, at all, ever), here's an Opening Hand of Awesome (which could as well be the name for my new post-rock cover band).

MUSIC

One of my worst decisions in life was to stop making music. One of the best ones was to take it up again. The result of that is my first EP entitled Snapshots of a Surveillance Manifesto that's scheduled to be released early May - think oldschool industrial with some twists and tweaks. Here's a front cover - designed by a friend, Peter Santha. Back in the days of LD50 we've been working on the goth brand Carbonbonbons (think Garbage Pail Kids, only in monochrome) and now we're collaborating again. The cover (and the logo and everything that comes afterwards from his Photoshop of Foul Magick) is filled with oblique references, good luck finding them all. That head on the cover and the trailer images comes from a sculpture, done by Jez Falconer.

Mixing and mastering and additional production is by Martin Bowes of Attrition - which is an exhilarating thing, as his LP The Hidden Agenda is amongst my top 10 favourite albums, so it's damn humbling to work with him on this. There are four original tracks on the EP with a few remixes to accompany them - I've already received wave files from Attrition, Black Nail Cabaret, First Aid 4 Souls and Lhasa Mencur and there are some more underway!

The EP will be free and apart from finding it on Bandcamp and Soundcloud, you'll be able to download a bigger package from this site, complete with a production diary, demos, ringtones and whatnot. You can find 15-sec teasers on Instagram, such as this one below (find the others for The Mark and Firewalls here).

WORK

Been covering virtual reality, indie gaming and everything in between for 24.hu since December. My experiences with VR are quite ambivalent and I'll share these with you in a later post.

damage_dk2

There's also a fun podcast I'm involved with entitled 20 Minutes Into The Future - for all you English-speaking fellas there, I'm sad to say it's all in Hungarian so you'll have to make do with liking all our casts on Soundcloud and iTunes - they're chock full of bad word jokes and post-6pm remarks apart from reactions to major and minor tech news from the globe. I still have a few projects under wraps I'd really love to talk about but I still can't. Yes, books and scripts are among them and music seems to gain a bigger priority than making infographics. Thankfully.

GAMES

Have I told you guys about my budding board game infection? No? Well, I did now. I have it. Fermenting with friends over a table looking at a half-destroyed planet (Eldritch Horror) or a coed flatshare of goth models (Chez Geek/Chez Goth) or just Petri dishes full of virii (Pandemic) is a great way to pass the time (and also, my fifth childhood phase). These are the nine biggest favourites, by the way.

damage_bg_fave

SITE

After having used Arthemia for a loooong time, I've decided to switch to another Wordpress theme that greatly helps with giving a new life to this blog. The Fox keeps it more densejournalish (yes, this is a word now) and doesn't feel like it's breathing down my neck, urging me to write two more posts every day. I have more things to say now so prepare to have it in your face, in one way or another. Heh heh. Heh. Hhhhrh. The header and the logo were also handmade by Peter Santha, so show him some love. And now, let us set sail to Sanctuary!

Always,
Damage


planetdamage: this was 2015 (in pictures, data and lists)

Hello, cyberpunks, rivetheads, industrial-and-experimental-lovers and weird-people. This blog was more or less a wasteland in 2k15 - content was posted on Facebook or Instagram with a lot of time idly spent in front of a keyboard trying to warp up THAT BEST BASSLINE. Until I conjure up the skills of Bill Leeb (because with basslines that man is GOD), here's a summary of what happened this year.

planetdamage_2015_001_jan

Read more


pd.LIFESIGN (2015 march)

Do you know that painting that has a monstrous, green biotrain swooshing and screaming on its tracks straight into oblivion with the Pripyat wheel in the background? It is also stiff in all the wrong places and there's an orgy in the background with people and things, I guess, but if I don't remember well, it's just glitch with a lot of flesh-coloured curves. Which is usually the definition for sex. Oh hello, by the way. I AM THAT TRAIN.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaelLXKLlc8

If I stopped writing here, it would be the best blogpost I've written in a long time and I'd call it Loco Electro and make a teeshirt about it with fluorescent ink and everything. Luckily for you, I have the tendency to push things down the entropy slope. So, promise: no promises about further projects, only masturbating with links pointing to final products. I just deleted half a paragraph with promises about further projects. Life is quite an endless mixture of translations, copywriting, infographics design, book writing and making more music, which makes it extremely hard to focus on one single thing and I could have learned this from any RPG in the 90's that dual-class characters are the bane of class proficiency and triple-class characters are fodder. And as it happens, I'm desperately fighting to get better in graphic design AND music AND writing. I could play level 9000 intergalactic battles with anyone now who'd say specialization might be the best idea now. They'd be right, of course. That's the worst part of it.

And I'm also asking questions, such as: why was Jupiter Ascending such a poorly written movie and why is Person of Interest still the best cyberpunk series left standing? And True Detective Season 2 really has an orgy scene, but does it feature tentacles? And when will I properly have the creative kick to finalize the first card game we're working on? And why didn't I know that Emmon released an album last year entitled Aon? Aaaand will I be happy when the new Ghost in the Shell movie comes out?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVsQ4I4aAew

Board game nights are also a thing now and it's mostly been Eldritch Horror that kept my crew mumbling for the past month or so, because fthagn. If you have some great ideas about gothic/horror/cyberpunk board/cardgames, especially ones that are not especially mainstream, I'd love to hear about them (and here's a BGG profile for reference)! Still don't know whether it would be a smart idea to settle for Android: Netrunner - it is the living epitome of the cyberpunk LCG but I simply don't have the time for deckbuilding and the two-player limitation is not something I like working with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TD2ViWd6uVw

And here's a Youth Code live vid, because Sarah just turned 30 yesterday (HAPPY MEGA MENTAL BIRTHDAY, SARAH!) and I just can't get enough of them. And that's also the very first track, Keep Falling Apart that really pulled me in and never really let me go ever since.

Funny how it turns out that you guys are still reading this and are actually hungry for more. I know that many of you can't actually contact me or life is a lot faster where you work and directly getting back at bloggers is just not something that you do in 2015 anymore, but hey, thanks for the feedback - it actually means a fucking lot to me. 2015 = VERY STRANGE, UNEVEN, UNBALANCED TIMES. Let's make the best out of that.


REGULAR RECAP ROMP [2015.002]

Weekly news recap from Planet://Damage, a magnet of cyberpunk, glitch, music production and anything else that can look black and neon-tinted at the same time. Enjoy your stay.

motoko_scarlett

Scarlett Johansson is reported to play Motoko Kusanagi in DreamWorks' live-action reinterpretation of GHOST IN THE SHELL and boy, did that raise an army of haters on the cyberpunk and anime boards. I remember one similar occasion from a few years back, when there were talks of Hayden Christensen playing Case in the Neuromancer movie (which is supposed to be directed by Vincenzo Natali and insiders have been really silent about that one) and the vocal minorify of the interwebs went berzerk ballistic on his ass. Ramifications for that aside, it's interesting to see how anime stereotypes and gender conditioning gets in the way for people to actually be able to imagine how Johansson could very well do the Major. One of last year's best movie experiences for me was clearly UNDER THE SKIN, a film of Kubrickesque dark chemistry with a hearty vat of WTF. If she could pull THAT off, Kusanagi's going to be a relatively easy ride. Check this Variety source with a lot of namedropping.

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this was 2014: dreams in pockets

i have a hyper-velocity religion metric rack
i caught the centre bullet first
and i wonder what i'm going through

It's been a blink of a blind eye, 2014. I've succumbed to the whole fiftyfiftyish conundrum this year: [there's a good side to bad and a bad side to good to equalish amounts, so all is good at the end]. Regardless, this year's been 15% good, 85% bad and the whole conundrum can go fuck itself, bidding it kthxbai with the last days of 2k14. Even wording this makes me feel... strange. My year in London made me realize quite fast that even though in Hungary we are well used to drama blogging, trauma news and catastrophy awareness, that's less the case, stabbing westwards - everyone has someone who's dying and noone puts it in the shopwindow. So I really sat down, shrink theory and all, to count the things that were good (good first!) and bad - yeah, it was still a bad year. Which makes the good points stronger. And makes me want to ditch the half-assed waiting even more and launch the products and projects we've been brainstorming in times of woe, the tracks I was composing at post-3am insomnia bubbles, the blog posts I've never posted, the slam poetry drafts that ended up in the strangest mailboxes on the strangest hilltops. (Yes, I can hear you reaching out and listening.)

Q3-Q4 was something I can easily call a period of the dark night of the soul, with all its occult implications and whatnot but it sounds needlessly dramatic so I opened up my mega folder of EBM, industrial and new beat to find a nineties' release title that fits this year. I really wanted to stick to Skinny Puppy releases (after their Eye Vs Spy tour with Front Line Assembly, Haujobb and Youth Code I can only hope they'll repeat that in Europe in 2015!) but Too Dark Park and Last Rights or even Inquisition sounded way too catastrophe-ridden.. so I stuck with Dreams in Pockets, an EP by Insekt, from 1993. Those dreams might even be hatching, as we speak.

KLING KLANG

Better known as "work". My amazing friend TheLastLaugh Julie is behind this wording: and this is a very vocal thank-you to her that she helped me fight through the very fucking worst weeks of this year. I owe you a lot for that and everything else, Jules ;)

  • Wrote a new book, it's non-fiction and it needs some extra insight and addition from others, but it's mostly ready. 2015 Q1 will be about wrapping that up and either finding a publisher or releasing it independently (on Amazon, most probably.. do you guys have any ideas, insight or experience re:self-publishing?). A note to all my friends on this globe and beyond: it's in English! Those of you on Instagram: you might have seen a few thumbnails already!
  • My first novel is still in synopsis form - but it's gotten a lot more wicked since I turned my ideas into plot summary words this January. All the trauma experiences I had this year (I have more lives than a feline) gave me a great idea and mindset for the first chapter. Yes, it's going to be a head-on mindfuck, yes it's also related to new technology and it's also related to ancient tech we still haven't figured out how to use decently (and no I'm not talking about organic anal bleach here). Stay tuned for more.
  • Had a number of lectures and talks this year: re-visited International Business School Budapest to teach youngsters about social media, PR pitfalls and digital marketing; talked about music profiling at a Virus event hosted by Kati Oltai and properly mindwarped some five hundred devs about the future of mobile tech at HWSW!App - and the list goes on.
  • I'm NDA'd about a lot of things I did this year - but they mostly had to do with infographics and scripts. I'll let you guys know more once we get greenlit for one of the projects that we especially liked working on. (We've been expecting that email in December, guess we have to wait some more.)

hwsw01

Photo: HWSW.

capa02

Photo: @aorcsik.

MUSIC

Music was probably the best thing that happened to me this year. I stopped writing music in 1997 and that was one of the worst decisions I made that promptly started a domino of many, much more worse decisions. So I just decided that all the time I spent procrastinating with social media, gaming and whatever else could be put to proper use with turning off the internet and going back to mad audio knob-fiddling! Best times ever.

  • Bought RENOISE and got a M-Audio Oxygen 49 controller and started jotting down ideas. Renoise is goddamn amazing! When I was making tracks back in the days, I mostly used FastTracker, so getting back to a very similar workflow and arrangement is something that appeals to me a lot. Also, cEvin Key of Skinny Puppy, Download and SubCon uses and endorses Renoise, so what could really go wrong?
  • I have a lot of ideas and patterns and half-songs (stored in either Renoise or CAUSTIC, another great music making software, not as complex as Renoise but infinitely fun, especially its modular synth module!) Those on Instagram: a couple of 15-sec blips are posted there and you might notice that I love arps a lot.
  • The first track I made this year is entitled GLITCH BABY GO, a complete rework of Syskon from quite a few years back. My musician friends were totally supportive and gave me great feedback - thank you Zoog/Angelspit, Istvan from FA4S, Lhasa Mencur, Emke/Black Nail Cabaret and all you other soundmakers, you know who you are!

  • A remix is in the making and another remix for a 2015 release is being talked about. Watch this space for more strangeness!

glitchbabygo-1

PERSONAL

Total disaster, a trainwreck. I might happily add, though, that I really have the life expectancy of a whole ballroom of cats. If I have any guardian angels, chances are, they're very, very drunk by this time of year. Not really wanting to add specifics. Move on, everyone. Oh yeah, one more thing to add: this year's SHE PAST AWAY and DEATH IN JUNE gigs were great! Also Björk's Biophilia live screenings were touching beyond words. Yep, we went to see it twice with the amazing Brigiri. And now I want to buy hang drums.

xwordpuzzle

Do I get an achievement for ending up in a crossword puzzle? (Thx, Kolos, I owe you one for this :))

emke_k

Funny how I always end up not having photos about me and my friends together (or myself), so I'm really happy to have this - straightening the LDN/BUD axis a bit with Emke and K. Mostly talking about Arturia, Nordleads and mike sensitivities, if I remember right. AND Star Wars.

laptop

Yeah, still hiding circuitry under slabs of colored paper.

onosendai

And that's a new creative corner. Without the tee. Usually.

inspirationboard

And something of an inspiration board that I quickly compiled from all the flyers and cards I found while figuring out where I might have put my notes from a few years ago. Nope, didn't find it, but this one totally made the search worthwhile.

labdeco

People are usually startled when they see this. The lodge has mostly been closed this year so the few people who have actually seen this were... mostly baffled. Good, but completely beside the point.

BEST MUSIC THIS YEAR?

Expect a post about this super soon: Angelspit, Black Nail Cabaret, Biosphere, The Future Sound of London or Perturbator released some amazing music this year and they deserve your attention and hard-earned YouTube money. If it's not this year, it's early next year. Beware! Also, some terrific S13 mixes to end up in my ears this year!

All the more fun to look forward to in 2015, hopefully with less woe, goofing off and leaving good ideas unfinished. Not really a fan of making new-year's-promises but if I can keep up these three, gods save you all, hahaha. Thanks to all the lovely friends, acquaintances and the beautiful people for keeping the pumps working.

HUMANMEAT IS NEONGREEN, 2015 IS HAVOK.

damage_a


NEW MUSIC: Glitch Baby Go

Hello, friends, stalkers, random link waltzers, intelligence community ninjas and various demons with Minimoog filters as their filth neurons. On top of the page there's a new track called GLITCH BABY GO that I did - something I was basically working on in September (apart from a load of freelance design & script works for zaibatsus). I loved working on that as I haven't been properly pouring out my headmeat babies through music, only through words or graphic design - this was definitely a different approach. (One that requires less coffee but more headphones, then meeting more people to listen to your track on their phones, tablets, computers, car stereo, normal stereo, partyplace and the occult little sound system you made from their cat's hymen.)

glitchbabygo-1

Most of my musician or producer friends I was talking to were usually advocates of one DAW over the others: this obviously saying a lot about their workflow or underlying concept of production. Most recommendations were clearly pointing towards Ableton, a few towards FL Studio... and my choice to work with Renoise, a DAW that basically grew out of oldschool tracker software made my friends question my common sense, because writing music in anything that looks like Excel is just bad karma, they said. Well, I grew up on FastTracker and whenever I hear music it runs from top to bottom in my head, not from left to right. That's one thing. The other is: Renoise does look a bit more intimidating than Ableton but that sort of non-userfriendly and very mathematical feel makes you go more creative and more understanding of what you're trying to accomplish. No, it's not easy but for people who love their obsctacles in order to make them more creative, it's a godsend.

glitchbabygo-2

Glitch Baby Go grew out of Syskon, one of my favourite tracks that I've done back in the 90s. Changed most of the instruments, kicks, turned the bassline from a collection of three very similar offset-shifted bass samples to a combination of three very different sounding instruments, added a lot of samples from William Gibson's Neuromancer audiobook and some glitch vocals, did some mastering... I particularly liked messing around with the Glitchmachines Hysteresis glitch delay and the FerricTDS tape dynamics simulator, both VST plugins free.

Good glitching - more stuff coming up soon. Hopefully sooner than later. Heh heh. Heh. Hrrrr.


det schlecht fabriek

glitchpheiz3

"CVs are very much like olives, opera, anal sex and the elusive mother-in-law: they’re the product of acquired taste."

I have a new book draft finished and sent out to a group of fierce pre-readers, hullo and everything, been a few months since I last posted anything - I've been thinking a lot. (A lot of my good friends would pass me another mug of DEATH COFFEE to me at this point without a word and look amused. Come join me, said the DEATH COFFEE PARTY TRAIN.) Got three synopses on my desk - two for books, one for a movie -, which is also littered with (yes, sentient coffeemugs) specials of >>Computer Music about music making (there's a free Windows version of >>Caustic, the best music making app for Android and >>Bitwig Studio has also been released, gaining traction and awesome reviews), a shitload of books to read (like >>Assimilate, a volume of academic essays on EBM/industrial, as rockingly reviewed by @rotnoxious into Auxiliary a couple of months ago, >>check page 29 here), the CDEP of my best friend's new band has also found its way here, together with an assortment of very black and highly dysfunctional Blackburn safety light chargers.

koldush

So the desk is chaotic, littered. Heaving. And the mind's similar, something like MEMORY. An insane amount of people who are merely the photographs of themselves. No novas against the skyline, no promises fulfilled, no appreciation mustered from the remainder of a chemical halo of goodwill. An insane amount of experience. An insane amount of burning backups. An insane amount of coping.

Great releases so far this year: >>Attrition, >>Angelspit, >>BAAL, >>Defrag, >>Illuha, >>Swans, >>Vaniish...actually owing a couple of you guys mixes and reviews as well. With one book draft penned and more work to compensate for all the [yeah, whatever], it should arrive to you a lot faster now.

On that happy note, martial artists and horses.

The next round is on you.
Literally.

If you're still reading this - drop me a few lines to planetdamage at gmail. I like to know my readers. And I miss the scent of novelty.

See you around. Soon.


pd.LIFESIGN [2014 march]

straying not for the lesser sentiment of folly but for the greater sentiment of dereliction, someplace else this is a tree in the shape of hatred

Three months of unevenly distributed focus is what happened. Sometimes I drank a coffee and then went out to the kitchen to make another one and I didn't fully realize a day passed and I hadn't noticed. Living on borrowed Tumblr attention deficit time. There were weeks of toothache, I remember that, because I now know the map of street samurai grey clinics who do things in your mouth that you don't want to fully remember. On other weeks projects flourished and exams were passed gloriously, like driving theory and gun & rifle theory and practice, because fuck you that's why. Post-thirtyish fear of closure, typical of our generation. Then there were long weeks when I couldn't write and that meant trouble (Zinta was the first to call me trouble and she was SO right about that) because three books mean a lot of stress if two of them need serious worldbuilding. So I started writing a fourth one because I could easily do 20 pages a day about abstract visuals. Quite a tricky period to wade through, waist deep in bad timing and worse circumstances but things just never give themselves easily, do they.

But do I fucking hate telling you all my projects are in progress, so at least one book's coming out by Q3. Hopefully two altogether by the end of the year but after all the challenges that seem to end up on my windshield... let me digress.


Kopi luwak is off my bucket list. Comes via cold drip with a faint fruity touch and I might even think it's overhyped. Italian triple ristretto is still Hiroshima strength for the mind.


#whatsinmybag - nowadays with a whole lot more painkillers


Don't even ask.


Took up Yang style taiji after long years of hiatus and as it's springtime, my original Sinred is out from the freemasonic shed - this was taken during an urban tour: this was the place where I loved for one and a half decades and more importantly, this is the place where ld50.hu was conceived, born and raised.

Which inevitably leads us to my next point, which is...


The big bad Planet://Damage post for 2013

planetdamage-2013

Hi.
Let's recap.
Day One of 2k13, North London. Circle of friends, merriment. Cold. Working for a startup that's just like my old community site in Budapest, only that it's ran and paid for by coders who believe real content is cats and a community is not forged by giving it time to fertilize itself and let people loosen up enough. I rebel in the name of almost a decade of experience. This, obviously, gets me fired. (Good luck, North London startup!)

With a sudden and muchly unexpected turn of events, a move back to Budapest, a place I called home for a long period of time, with bike and all. Things suddently get moving. Living again in a freemason lodge. Still not a joke. Started working on a novel with a fellow Hungarian writer. Continuous progress bar movement until completion. Started working on my own novel, details to follow. English translation of my debut non-fiction book Damage Report is still underway. Also, a bit of an academic publication in a book about how the internet changes your thought patterns. (Porn, obviously.) Also, ended up in a list of the most creative 25 Hungarians. Upping the stakes, isn't it.
Last day of 2k13, Budapest. Circle of friends, merriment.

Thanks for making my life easier this year. Or harder. Or, as it often happened, both.
Better luck next year.

PIXELY STUFF

Camera 360

STATS FOR YOU STALKER LOT

artistcloud_planetdamage_12month_upper

tagcloud_planetdamage_12month_upper

albumcloud_planetdamage_12month

(via lastfm.dontdrinkandroot.net)

LES BEST GASMS OV EAR IN 2013

.youth code

youth_code_c_rick_rodney

Photo by Rick Rodney.

My all-out-all-in favourites this year. The most frantic newcomers in the 2k13 eargasm bunch, they're re-pushing the boundaries of EBM and re-staging the splatter - doing it very well indeed! I'm a complete sucker for Mentallo & The Fixer (most of the regular readers know this) and YC works in a similar vein but with more sweat and less psychedelia, forging 4-minute tracks instead of ten-minute long DMT epics. If you want anger, frustration and sheer tension ventillated in your stems (not just brain, any stem will do), they're for you. Their recent winter mixtape is a Hiroshima strength coffee bukkake in itself. Start your new year with buying all their shit. Seriously. (Here's the video that's love at first hearing.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnEod0IozYw

.attrition

attrition_c_holger_karas

Photo by Holger Karas.

Attrition's been my love object since their Hidden Agenda LP in 2001, sensual dark electro (fetish electro, I might have said this a few times) at its best, completely fit for flogging. The new album (The Unraveller of Angels) is a worthy sequel to everything that's coming out of their Cave - and its teaser, the Narcissist EP brings you the track that I simply had to call THE BEST TRACK OF 2013. Dragged me back from hell multiple times. Depression, tooth ache, plane travels, you name it. This is a pick-me-up-cure-it-all baby.

.john costello

And via Martin I got to know the stuff of his Engram collaborator John Costello. Sinfully catchy retro synth-techno, a Numanesque touch here, an angry vocal distortion there. What's not to love?

.download

download_2013

Both Skinny Puppy and Front Line Assembly released an album this year (Weapon and Echogenetic, respectively) but I didn't find either of them particularly ear-gripping: surprisingly enough, the cEvin Key sideproject DOWNLOAD's ripe and succulent mindfuck entitled LingAM easily claims one of the thrones with its mixture of weird nineties electronica and mega funk glitch. None of the tracks miss a single beat. If you want some hardcore psychedelica, this is it.

.atom tm

f8299976ed_640_480

That album easily pulled me through the worst half of the year with my face first. Lassigue Bendthaus is a household name for me and Uwe's project Atom TM came almost the closest to that sounds with this glaringly minimal glitch beat of an orgasm. (I completely do NOT get the Pete Townshend cover but apart from that, this is double decker music on long, long autumns and winters.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jp0q0swv4k

.comaduster

Comaduster

Comaduster with his new album Hollow Worlds ended up on loads of 2013 best posts and that's with a good reason. Glitch, drum'n'bass, Tympanik-worthy electronica, great vocals, amazing production value. It's actually so good I stopped listening to it not to OD on it.

.juno reactor

juno-reactor-2013-500x250

Ben Watkins releases new album! Turns out he's back on track making supreme music! (Which we banged during forest biking, but that's a longer story.) Classic psy trance with organic tribal infusions, a bit of ethno on the side.

.phantom love

mushy

Photo via rockit.it

Got Phantom Love's first EP for my birthday from a wonderful lady called Julie, she introduced me to Phantom Love who/that turned out to be a side project of Mushy. A few years ago I fell in love with Farah's track Law of Life and Phantom Love sounded a lot like it, so it was instant love on the first hearing. New EP's equally powrful, slowly pulsing, minimal sex electro. That whole EP is about nothing else, really. Fuck the Buddha Bar chillout lovemaking sessions. This is the soundtrack for anything carnal.

.neuroticfish

It's great to know that Neuroticfish is back - especially that I've been on their "final" gig at the Leipzig Wave-Gotik-Treffen: their four-track EP Limited Behaviour is just one track short of being the perfect party stomper accessory and their even newer track Silence is an even better proof that the new LP (hopefully in 2014?) will be the one new injection the scene needs. (Well, it will be another injection of 2004 but I'm not too much convinced by the way Combichrist, Funker Vogt and Suicide Commando is heading, so for me at least, that's a more favorable turn of events.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ywfs07VFdpM

.chvrches

chvrches_2713212b

Photo by Eliot Lee Hazel.

Easily the cheesist contender in this whole package of love, Chvrches came home with me from London as a part of the indie virus (together with the sadly disbanded The Good Natured and the amazing but supercommercial Charli XCX - whose first single Nuclear Seasons is still an amazing witch housey production) and frankly, I don't seem to mind. I'd love to see them turn broodier and more glitchy or splattery but that's probably not happening in this quantum shithole of a universe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y7kP98ty1g

.lycia

Lycia

Not enough gothic this year (although The Cemetary Girls' Opus Vitae was still a must-have!), but the new Lycia LP entitled Quiet Moments is a jewel, dark, foreboding, catastrophe-inducing and loving it for every dark thunderclap.

.access to arasaka

Access+to+Arasaka+nxpV4OOQ6ss

Rob didn't leave us without any audio material this year, thank heavens! Although released on CRL instead of Tympanik, his weirdly Voltairean EP "écrasez l'infâme" lends you the same distant air of glitch electronica as his previous materials, maybe with a slightly less sense of urgency. If you don't know what I'm talking about, stream his wonderfully mind-awakening stuff on the Bandcamp link below.

.best radio: SUBCONRADIO

Listened to a lot of weird Skinny Puppy-related stuff through SubConRadio - not entirely surprising as it's maintained by Key and friends. Soundhound or Shazam doesn't even have a single axis with these tracks, so good luck upping your active track recognition skills. Even di.fm's weird space channel doesn't come close to the coolness of this stream.

.best desktop music app: SCROBLR.FM

Finally a scrobbler that includes Google Music, Bandcamp, Soundcloud and YouTube. Nuff said.

.best mobile music app: CAUSTIC 3

However much of a late-comer Caustic is to the 2013 party, it's easily the best music-making app on the Android platform, sending any and all DAWs and soft synths off the charts to the depths below. (Okay, SunVox still has a chance, but most of you won't have enough time to master its UI, if you do, why not use a desktop DAW?) Check the trailer below and decide for yourself. (And, oh, the PC version is completely free! Not that the Android version would put you into serious debt..)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AC-w1Ts-aw

.five series this year

  • ALMOST HUMAN
  • BLACK MIRROR
  • ORPHAN BLACK
  • PERSON OF INTEREST
  • UTOPIA

And surprisingly, Ghost in the Shell: Arise is not among them.

2014 will bring you more content from me and that's a promise.
You ROCK the world this Old Year's Last Day.
See you soon.

damage_a


DAMAGE REPORT: szindrómára stockholm

planetdamage-2013

" Közmegegyezésre épülő hallucináció, melyet minden országban törvényes felhasználók milliárdjai tapasztalnak meg naponta, egészen a számtani alapfogalmakat tanuló gyermekekig… Az emberi világrendszer összes számítógépének tárolóiból származó adatok grafikus megjelenítése. Hihetetlen összetettség. Az elme nem-terébe nyújtózó fényvonalak, adatgalaxisok és adatcsillagzatok. Mint a távolodó városi fények…"
(William Gibson: Neurománc)

0, HOMMAGE

Eredetileg, tiszteletadásként is, csehtamásos-bereményis stílgyakban terítettem volna a kis- és nagy- elé, hogy mit tett velem az internet, f-moll, disz-moll, ezt tetted velem, irén, szomorú madár a dashboard tetején, hideg a kávé, benne olvadt koponyás cukorkanál, mint a kibaszott szerelmünk meg a daguerrotípia, irén, kétezerhétszáz olvasatlan levél, egyiktől sem könnyebb a bőrönd, sem a lélek november elsején, spamekből sajog a lelkem, arad-tizenhárom EBM a dashboard tetején, írd meg nekem, irén, kredencen pohár víz, milyen finom, tüttürűrü, tüttürűrü. Saccperre ilyen egy szocmédia (szocháló, szocház) előtt hajnaligragadó tinédzser, majd egyetemista, majd munkanélküli (javítsd, állásnélküli) estéje, lejtője, élete - színre, formára és szagra

meg az ártatlanság idő előtti nettóplusz elvesztése; amiről hallani sem akartam, azt még meg is mutatják, majd persze újra meg is nézem saját akaratból (ez a legrosszabb, hol az alufóliasisak), majd lájkolom, hogy el ne felejtsem továbbküldeni, persze napi harminc (háromszáz) ilyen után kafkai a közöny. A KÖZÖNY. Aztán ráfrissítek a dashre, a readerre, a glassra, az életemre. Megint.

Szóval:
az internet, mint a neon horizontot unottan bámuló, energiaitaltól és ingertúltengéstől fásult, felhőkarcoló szélén ülő koravén tinédzser popkulturális metaforája (és a szerző portréja), avagy miért perelném be az internetet, ha nem lenne Stockholm-szindrómám, ez egy új cím, én adtam ennek.

internet_gondolkodas_veszelszki
A [szindrómára stockholm] az Eötvös Kiadó 2013 decemberében megjelenő, Veszelszki Ágnes által szerkesztett A világhálóba keveredett ember című tanulmánykötetben jelenik meg. Jelent meg. Fog megjelenni. Idő sem létezik, miért küzdesz egyáltalán.

A szöveg a szerkesztő előzetes engedélyével szerepel itt - a kötetben szereplő változat némi stilisztikai változtatást tartalmazhat. Kávé sincs bennem, nem értem, miért küzdök egyáltalán.

MEGKATTINTOD.
A tanulmánykötet Facebook-oldala.
Könyvajánló, tartalomjegyzék.

KÖNYVBEMUTATÓ.
A bálnacet szemében (Jónás Kézműves Sörház, Fővám tér 11-12), december 16-án, este hattól. Facebook event itt.

Ez volt a kötelező önreklám, megyünk tovább.
Ja amúgy gyertek könyvbemutatóra, dedikálok bármit bárkinek bárhova, bocs, ha becsúszik pár sigil.
Proj on.

1, A MEMÓRIÁD MEG EGY KITŰZŐ (AZ EXOMEMÓRIA DISZKRÉT BÁJAI)

"Az okos mindent tud, a még okosabb meg tudja, hogy hol kell keresni" - a hetente rendszerszerűen másnak tulajdonított mondás 2k13-ra jobban bevésődött a fiatal generációnak, mint a jaigensálsapka. Éppen tegnap veszítettem jelentős összeget a még névtelen, de az elmúlt hónapokban egyre gyakoribb antijátékon: az fizeti az asztaltársaság teljes fogyasztását, aki először veszi elő a zsebéből (vagy az asztal közepére feltornyozott kupacból) a telefonját, mi meg éppen nem tudtuk, ki festette a mellettünk ékeskedő festményt, de ott a szignó, keressünk rá a… snitt, kétségbeesetten keresem a főpincér szemét, színváltoztatom az íriszemet, hátha a kedvezmény... hát nem.

A gadget-kodependencia (a 24/7 online-kodependencia, a szinte kötelező érvényű örök standby, a párna mellől alig kiforduló első reggeli Gmail-, Facebook-, Twitter- és Instagram-check, a lutraalbum halász-vadász ösztönét meglovagoló Foursquare-t a maga gamificationjével már hadd ne említsem), az EU- és startup-pénznyelők éppen lefutott buzzwordje, a cloud, a blogegyszerűen indítható wikik egymásra tornyozódó rétegei a nagy néprétegek számára (elől) kidobták a lexikális tudást az ablakon és még utána is köptek egyet - az információbeszerzés és -feldolgozás (és mint olyan, a 21. század komplett szociális és üzleti élete) teljességét mostantól az energiaszektor tartja sakkban (a Snowden-botrány így is új felvonást hozott az information age végére, ha nem éppen annak végjátékát), legjobb esetben is dinamót hajthatunk, ha lemerül az elem annak bármelyik értelmében, akkor az internet addig nem él, amíg nem helyezzük át új platformra mind az információtárolást, mind annak fenntartását. Kíváncsian várom a véráramból táplálkozó iPhone, majd router koncepcióját, csak hogy az FMCG-szektor bevételéhez is hozzájárulhassak valamelyest.

A mandzsettagomb helyén virító exomemória kényelmetlenül kényelmes fogalmával majd az oktatásügy vívhat evolúciós küzdelmet. Nem mintha a barlangrajzoktól kezdve a nagykönyvtárakig nem beszélhetnénk ugyanúgy exomemóriákról, de a hozzáférési sebesség és adatsűrűség valahol elmossa az emberek agyában a tényt, hogy a legtöbbjére azért emlékezni sem ártana. Két generációval később kellemetlenebb és időszerűbb lesz ezt visszaolvasnunk. Amúgy.

INTERMEZZO

Tegnap (igen, törzshely) hallottam egy viccet: hogyan ismerhetsz meg egy embert a legjobban? Úgy, hogy lemásolod. Túl gyorsan jöttünk rá, hogy ez igazából nem vicc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7drBeuxX814

2, PERSZE HOGY PARALÍZIS, PERSZE HOGY ADHD

Poszt-hidegháborús kémfilmekben megnyitott vízcsap mellett adják le az igazi titkokat: a poloskák ugyanis képtelenek kiszűrni a fehér zajként folyó csapvíz mögül az emberi hangot. (A barna mögül sem, munkahelyre ajánlom, persze a fizetésemelési ajánlatot se hallod meg, de hát valamit valamiért.) Pont ilyen a web is, na még egy linket, na még csak a harminc megnyitott tabot, a keleti parton most ébrednek fel és most posztolják ki a reggeli kávé mellett az új linkeket, akkor azt még megvárom. Ja hogy már hajnal van. Akkor már nem is alszok. Alszom. De ezt még meg kell néznem a neten, hogy hogy írják helyesen. Mi az hogy Grétsy, mi az hogy Chomsky, mitől komparatív nyelvészet, mi az hogy okkult lingvisztika, miért John Dee, biztos szabadkőművesek. A borgesi Aleph tökéletes paralízist kalapál az arcom közepébe, kapkodást vagy éppen túlzott, óráig is elnyúló előzetes mérlegelést, még utánanézek a flownak, ahogy zuhan a toronyház tetejéről.

Tabok számában, inboxban felgyűlt olvasatlanban (értsd, hasznosszennyes) kvantált fogalom az ADHD, amit hiába gyógyszerezne a DSM-IV-TR, diagnózisa öröktéves: nincs krónikus figyelemhiányosság a gyerekeknél, ők hardkódolva érkeznek ezzel, nálunk sincs, csak mindig van még valamit csinálni, így veszíti el a világ lassan az érdeklődést a szex iránt is (ilyen azért soha ne történjen meg), mindent láttunk már, mindent megcsináltunk, mindig van továbbhorgolni az extrémet kétszer is, a chan-gag-tumblr hármas biztos kézzel építi a wtflandet, epilepszia színű passportom lesz oda, ha olyan koncepciózus iratokat nyomtatnak majd nekem, mint amilyet a laibachista NSK adott.

Épp ezek miatt unalmas (annyira 2012, annyira huszadik századi, annyira OLD) minden, a Folyamat cerebrálisra vált és kiteljesedik a Weltschmerz igazi értelme: a test sosem képes meghaladni a szellem igényeit, legfeljebb majd akkor, amikor az internetszolgáltatók pincéiben nyitott megaillegál szexklubokban full body suitok, fétis- és orgiaszoftverek lesznek. (Jahogy vannak, valóságnak hívják és az is egy hagymahéj. Milyen meta.) Remekbeszabott konzumerista zárványpontok és zombibuborékok lettünk, no way out no way out no fucking way out, kivéve, ha kiírjuk magunkat a nagynarratívából, a britek már persze tesznek arról is, hogy ilyen ne történhessen meg, a pornó mellett az okkult is tiltott tartalomnak számít majd hamarosan a szolgáltatóknál, így múlik el a világ dicsősége mellett Blake, Yeats és Conan Doyle is.

3, LOCAL IS THE NEW GLOBAL

"Csak olyan embernek vagyok hajlandó hinni, aki egy kilométeren belül él", mondja egy éppen Ázsiát járó barátom. A kábelmodem mellől magát szopadék göndörhajú modellnek kiadó párhónapos mexikói kölyökkutya ijesztő reality checkje ugyanolyan aktuális, mint 25 éve: fizikai, kézzelfogható, triplecheckelhető bizonyíték kell ahhoz, hogy valami tényleg igaz legyen, a kávé jó, a kávé rossz, a kenyér rákot okoz, mégsem, hadd maradjak meg az egészségtelen, de boldog halálnál inkább annak minden tudatlanságával felvértezve. A paranoia (vagy bullshit detector, BSD, hogy legyen még egy hitelességet sugárzó anagramma) örökre belém égett, józanparasztiésszel és médiatapasztalattal vegyesen - randira, állásinterjúra, újemberhez több körös háttércheck kell, magyar cikkhez külföldi forrást kell keresni, hogy hol a félrefordítás vagy a kihagyás, külföldi cikknél kulcsszavakat, hogy hol az ellenoldal, majd az egészet (mindent, bármit) urbanlegend- és hoax-szűrőkön, háziasszonyok pletykákkal megszórt hosszas telefonbeszélgetéssel is fogyaszthatják.

A hírcímek befektetőknek szánt kattintásgenerátorok, az investigative journalism bozóttűzön keresztüli menekülés (note: mindig is az volt), inkább hadd lássam, hogy mi történik a környékemen, abban jobban megbízom. Hinni persze kell valamiben, mindig kell valamiben és mindig kell valaminek, de én inkább meghallgatnék mindenkit és nem hinnék el senkinek semmit. Olykor, kávé nélkül magamnak sem. (Olykor, kávé nélkül remek reality show alapanyag lennék, a média a maya sokadik rétegét fekteti elém, én pedig egyre újabb és újabb christophernolani szintekre ébrednék fel a sokadik képzelt valóságban.)

A paranoia aztán az univerzum narratív gépezetében is megül, a darkwebből előkapart, izgalmasabbnál izgalmasabb és szubverzívnél is szubverzívebb cikkek felett ülök, hogy mindez igaz vagy szándékosan plántált, gondosan kicsiszolt hazugság, hogy a hozzám hasonlóakat megvezessék? A Question Everything globális, vicsorgó tépőfogas paranoiára bíztat minket a folyamatos társadalmi-gazdasági-politikai csatornázás és terelgetés miatt, így kezdett el az összes szubverzív barát kényszeresen sportolni és hobbizni harminc közelében és felette, így hal ki a láng, így múlunk ki mi is csendesen, hegymászó-biztonságikötések, DIY-csavartrükkök és házi receptek végtelen halmai között.

4, GEVULOT

Aztán jött a fantomcsörgés és a fiktív értesítők bal zsebben haldokló érzete, a mai napig szeretném azt hinni, hogy a bal combom ágyékmagasságban külön tudatra ébredt és jelez, ha munkaemailem jött vagy bringázni hívnak, aztán persze lehet hogy csak öregszem, de örülnék, ha nem. Az ilyen internetérzék jó százaléka mintakövetés, akár rá is érezhetnék tudat alatt, hogy mikor jönnek leveleim, de a Zeitgeist új gondolkodást követel meg tőlünk, új sebességet, új reakcióidőt, új kommunikációt, új nyelvet, új érzékeink ugyan miért ne alakulhatnának ki, gondolja Stirlitz. Hannu Rajaniemi újvonalas scifije, a The Quantum Thief גְּבוּלוֹת névre hallgató fogalma pont ilyen: a gevulot egyszerre technológia, hatodik (vagy sokadik) érzék és privacy-alapú védőmechanizmus: ezzel lehet emlékezni, hozzáférni az exomemóriához (mint tudásbázishoz, mint kollektív tudatossághoz) vagy az egyes találkozók privacyjét és nyíltságát szabályozni. A mintakövetők, nemzetvédelmi adatelemzők és anomáliaként élő tinédzserek scifikben létező, szinesztéziáig menő adatérzékelése valóságért kiált.

5, KTHXBAI

Úgyhogy enyhén luddita blues, az internet nélkül egy évig nemcsak létezni, de élni is tudó Paul Millert irigylem, értékválság is volt, amikor félre kellett ütnöm a hírportálos ajánlatot, hogy meddig vagyok képes utánozni az internetnélküliség bódhiszattváját, semeddig, bringán is csak azért nem netezek, mert vagy erősebb a maslowi túlélőreflex, vagy megint bekanyarodtam a hattizenhetes rakpartos lány mögé. Sikerélményt akarok és két kardvágásból győztes ütközetet, az internetek meg egy pavlovi gombbal megadják nekem, az agyam jutalomközpontjai karácsonyfaként világítanak, ha van áram, főként, hogy alapvető emberi jog lett az elme áramvonalas, kandírozott mandarinzselé színű tápláléka, jó kis szimbiózis lett ez, irén, sildessapkás amerikai turista gonosz énem, csak zabál, csak zabál, nekem csak a kredencszéli víz jut, az is langyos már, az internet meg széttárja az ölét, túl sok neme van, mind világít.


[PDHU] ilyen lesz az új regény

Annyit rebesgettem már fű alatt, hogy na két regény lesz jövőre, hogy ideje lenne már elárulni is valamit legalább az egyikről.
Olyan lesz az egyik, mint ez a kép.

p.o.n.t.o.s.a.n.

non

PS: Igen, untam, hogy nem blogolok már magyarul, úgyhogy!
Yeah. Expect more Hungarian posts. (English posts will keep you grounded here, though.)


pd.LIFESIGN [2013 november]

Two months since the last lifesign blip, so hi and everything. Got a few pictures for you from a Tuesday talk I held at an ELTE university event about "Future Shock by way of Toffler and Rushkoff interspersed with my overtly chaotic take on anything". For those of you who've attended: that chain of associations was a hydra, I know! Thanks for keeping the pace, the faith, the eyes in those sockets.

Writer Viktor Kubiszyn and le moi at the ELTE event. Photo by the lovely Panka Jancso.

A twin from the Land of Meta: this is how a heartwarming polaroidproof of ROCK gets to be made (Top one by me, bottom one by Sajtos.) Find more pics here at ELTE Online.

ON ANOTHER NOTE
Kreativ.hu published their list of the 25 Most Creative Hungarians in 2013 - I'm apparently one of them. That's quite an honour being vouched in to a talented company of creators, but then again, these people at Kreativ haven't seen me in the morning hours without coffee. Heh heh. Heh. Hhhhrhh. So yeah, mag's just out of the printer's and that's really a quick shot (the image photo was shot by Balazs Kassai), online version should be up soonish! ROCK!

MORE NOTES OF ROCK
Oh. For those of you who asked me why I fell off the face of the webs of the inter - sorry for not sploshing a diarrhea of links over you. I'm working on two books simultaneously with visible/public results or pimpage in 2014 - if everyone sticks to their deadlines and the gods think it's time for ROCK EVALUATION, of course. Apart from that, life's a kipu of trickery, great moments, bad juju and a weird soap opera. And great music. Watch this space for more.

Oh, and I'm a level 65 ele arrow ranger in Path of Exile. I think it says it all.

Always,
damage_a


planetdamage: lifesign, 2013 september

Relocated to Budapest last week, packages and bike arrived surprisingly intact (if you ever need BUD-LDN / LDN-BUD package transport, contact Meliza:London). Numerous project meetings, reading up on band biographies and UI design. Fighting procrastination and webfloating. Yes, this is a new word. Mostly listening to amazing new finds such as Youth Code, Cold Cave, Dead When I Found Her or numerous 242 side projects such as Holy Gang, Modern Cubism or MORF. Apparently Clock DVA released a new album as well entitled Post-Sign. Blog/site restart after un/successful reacclimatization. If you want good content, subscribe to my Facebook feed, if you want personal (fucking stalkers), go to Instagram. Or drop me an email instead, I tend to like those.

Nothing is True, Everything's Permitted.


PERSONAL: the last loot from london

And this morning marks the arrival of my last Amazon order, goddamnit, Plane tickets bought, countdown is now officially on, boxing at 90%, deadline in 5 hours for something amazing.


planetdamage: lifesign, 2013 august

UPDATE: So yeah, it really might be 2013 and not 2012. That just explains the whole London limbo phenomenon in greater detail. Thanks, @honeymooncroon, appreciate the reality check :)

Relocating to Budapest from London in... two days? Two weeks? It was great and eventful and eye-opening in loads of ways, met lovely and amazing people and most of my recollections of events, realizations and cultural deep structure diving are just too weird to describe. But I'm waving goodbye to all of it and moving onwards. Even this relocation is temporary, everything is. (So, umm, is temporariness temporary? there's a black loop to entangle.) Most of the stuff (apart from The Original Sinred) that I need to get moved is books, a whole lot of them, most of them coming from Magma Books, Forbidden Planet and Oxfams scattered throughout North London. And I'm afraid I'll have to order a few more before I'm really leaving, like Assimilate: A Critical History of Industrial Music, Ministry: The Lost Gospels According to Al Jourgensen and Concrete, Bulletproof, Invisible and Fried: My Life as a Revolting Cock. Great title, by the way.

Camera 360

Camera 360

As for everything else: the Damage Report translation is a lumbering beast but it's coming - no release dates yet, though. That book might need a decent overhaul and that requires some time. Also: whatever I've said about The Dose so far will not happen - the deal we've done this January got defaulted horridly. All the concepts and ideas that were grown during the production period will be shifted to a new project. There are a couple of infographics and publication ideas along the way - watch this space for more.

Camera 360

Camera 360

If I'm not dead, detained, desecrated or abducted to a higher dimension, I'll see you guys in September. Until that - expect the occasional info fragments and links. Wish I could reveal more but I just can't yet. Have a great summer or whatever else you're having in August/September. Damage out.